Vignweek 2024: The Winning Showcase of Carter Witz
Vignweek is an annual building competition hosted by the online group RebelLUG. The challenge lasts one week and consists of six building prompts designed to leave room for each builder to get creative with the vignette they come up with. Each build must be submitted within 24 hours of the prompts release, or 48 hours for the last prompt. The builds must be between 16x16 and 32x32 studs as shown on the right.
Each year there are two winners, one from the active members of the LUG and one from the community. This competition has been run for many years and never ceases to amaze me with the amount of creativity and level of skill that is demonstrated within a single day build.
I had the pleasure of chatting with the community winner for Vignweek 2024, Carter Witz, to talk about his experience and take a look at the MOCs he created!
And if you are curious, the winner from the RebelLUG members was jnj_bricks, be sure to check out his builds as well.
The Winner!
Chris: Hey Carter, thanks for taking the time to sit down with me and chat about Vignweek with me! Congratulations on taking the win this year! Have you participated in Vignweek in the past? What do you think makes Vignweek stand out among the many LEGO contests out there?
Carter: Hi Chris, thanks for having me! I’ve entered Vignweek once before this year, back in 2021. I had a lot of fun the first time I tried the contest, but I didn’t perform as well as I had hoped for. Since 2021, I’d been waiting for a good year to enter again, and this year, the competition week ended up being (fairly) free for me in terms of schedule.
Vignweek is such a unique contest because the overall time commitment is pretty low (it only lasts a week), but in every other regard, it’s super taxing! Forcing yourself to complete a build every 24 hours is quite the mental task, and sleep deprivation is a given.
Chris: I’ll bet! Juggling normal life and that much building and planning must take a lot of bandwidth. What did you think about the six prompts this year overall?
Carter: There was a nice mix of prompts this year, so naturally I liked some quite a bit better than others. My favorite prompts were probably “A Splash of Color” and “Microscale Set.” While the prompts I struggled the most with might be “Sci-Fi Fantasy” and “A long time ago in a country far, far away….” Both of those are “theme mashup” prompts, which I’ve never been a big fan of. Though all of the prompts ended up producing some really cool entries from all the participants, and I think there’s something to be said for that.
Chris: That makes sense—nice to see there was a wide variety of prompts to cater to many building styles. Let’s take a closer look at your builds and examine the prompts a bit closer!
Day 1: Olympic
Starting off with a single-word prompt, Olympic can be taken many different ways, from the Summer Games to the National Park, Mount Olympus, or anything in between. Carter chose to stick with the Games with a great rendition of Cross Country horse riding.
Chris: What made you choose this specific sport as your Olympic build?
Carter: For the “Olympic” prompt, I decided early on that I wanted to build an official Olympic sport since a portion of the judging is based on how well your build fits the prompt. I figured it would be hard to score low in that category with a build based on an Olympic event (turns out I was wrong XD). I spent a good portion of my lunch break at work searching for different Olympic events on my phone, so I could hopefully start building right after I got home. When I stumbled upon the “Cross Country” event, I thought it was more visually interesting than most of the other sports I’d come across. I also like building landscapes and plants, so the idea of an outdoor sport appealed to me.
Cross Country
Day 2: A Splash of Color
Day Two’s prompt is much more abstract and relies on the builder’s creativity to come up with a good model to show off their splash of color.
Chris: On such an open-ended prompt like "A Splash of Color", how do you brainstorm ideas and narrow them down to your final build?
Cater: My starting point was trying to figure out what color would provide the “pop.” Retired LEGO colors are a lot of fun to use, so I wanted to use one as the focal point for this entry. I only have a few older colors, which made deciding a lot easier. On Day One, I wasn’t really building in my comfort zone, and I knew I had to step up my game if I wanted a chance at winning the contest. So for Day Two, I just combined three things that I enjoy while building: old LEGO colors, ruins, and plants.
Chris: It’s always fun to see that Medium Lime used! Looks great in this setting. You could say it really adds a splash of color.
Ruins of Alph
Day 3: Sci-Fi Fantasy
This prompt was to combine sci-fi and fantasy into a single build, rather than just lumping the two genres together like they most often are! Carter has managed to start thinking with goblins, but I don’t know; the goblins might be a lie. Regardless, it’s a fantastic combination of classic fantasy goblin tunnels and physics-defying portal technology.
Goblin Tunnels 2.0
Day 4: Microscale Set
Creating a micro-version of an official set doesn’t sound that hard right? Think again! The size minimum requiring a 16x16 base rule out the possibility of basing a design on the 2012 10230 Mini Modulars set or the current Micro Ninjago City series. Let’s see how Carter tackled this one!
Chris: How did you go about picking a set to shrink down?
Carter: On the fourth day I had some down time at work, so I looked through a bunch of Lego sets on the “LEGO Builder” app. This is the app where you can look at instructions for most LEGO sets, so it seemed like a good place to start. I wanted to avoid building a micro version of a LEGO set based on a movie like Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings, since it might be hard to distinguish the build as being based on a set.
Narrowing the set down was actually easier than I expected, as I thought most sets would be too small to make a micro version fill out a 16x16 stud area. This prompt was actually the easiest for me, as it didn’t require as much mental energy to come up with a good idea. All I had to do was “copy” a LEGO set, which made it much more enjoyable for me. The set is a shrunk-down version of the 2017 LEGO Ideas set, 21310 Old Fishing Store.
Old Fishing stOre
Day 5: Mystery
Chris: Once again, we have a very ambiguous open-ended prompt. Do you prefer prompts like these or do you like the more constraining ones?
Carter: I think when a prompt has more restrictions you have an easier starting point. So during a competition like Vignweek where you have to nail down an idea very quickly, a more restricted prompt can be helpful. This was the prompt I had the least amount of build time for, and I remember having a difficult time finding an idea that I liked.
Rediscovery
Day 6: A Long Time Ago In A Country Far Far Away
Day Six, the final day. This build has a full 48 hours available to build. It was also one of the most constrained prompts of the week. Builders were required to recreate a Star Wars scene in a real-world historical setting. This really challenged builders to not only find a scene that would translate well to history but also build it well enough to still be instantly recognizable without all the sci-fi motifs that Star Wars is known for.
Chris: The finale! Did you use the whole 48 hours for this prompt or did you use some of that time to take a break and maybe take a nap?
Carter: My plan was to use the full 48 hours and build something slightly larger than my other entries, but I ended up getting hardly anything built in the first 24 hours. Also yes, I did take a nap. ;)
Chris: Great job making a scene from Star Wars in a historical setting and still making it instantly recognizable!
Chase on Endor
Time To Rest, At Last
Chris: Are there any sections of your builds that you are particularly proud of and want to highlight, especially given the short build times?
Carter: I was really pleased with how the medium lime leaves turned out in my day two entry. The 2x2 plant piece isn’t generally used in trees, so I wasn’t sure how it would look in a build. Thankfully it worked! The deck section of the “Old Fishing Store” entry also turned out to be pretty cool, specifically the bars that stick out of the technic bricks.
Chris: Which prompt was your favorite to build for and which build of yours are you most happy with?
Carter: My favorite creation I made for Vignweek this year would have to be the “Old Fishing Store.” All my other entries feel like they could’ve been improved if I’d had more time to spend on them, but the “Old Fishing Store” feels properly finished to me (As long as you don’t look from the back XD). The “Ruins of Alph” (yes, I stole the name from Pokemon) would be my next favorite, with “Rediscovery” rounding out my top three.
Chris: Thank you so much for taking the time to let me pick your brain about Vignweek! Congratulations once again on winning the event! I’ll let you get back to your recovery nap now.
Does Vignweek sound like a contest you would want to attempt? Let us know in the comments!
Do you want to help BrickNerd continue publishing articles like this one? Become a top patron like Charlie Stephens, Marc & Liz Puleo, Paige Mueller, Rob Klingberg from Brickstuff, John & Joshua Hanlon from Beyond the Brick, Megan Lum, Andy Price, Lukas Kurth from StoneWars, Wayne Tyler, Monica Innis, Dan Church, and Roxanne Baxter to show your support, get early access, exclusive swag and more.
